I am giggling. On Monday afternoon, Husband was in the driveway seasoning his new automatic charcoal smoker/grill, when the neighbor across the street came over to talk. She is a couple of years older than I am, and I was a high school classmate of her younger sister. Our mothers were in the same sewing club. Her family owned the Old Norwegian Boarding House in Luverne in the early years of the 20th century. Her son recently fixed our tires.
Mary asked Husband anxiously how I was doing, as another neighbor, someone we only met once, told her he heard that I had been diagnosed with dementia.
Well, this was quite a surprise! Husband had me come out to reassure Mary that I was fine, and in possession of all my faculties. She gave me an enormous hug, and said she would go have a little talk with the neighbor to let him know he was wrong, and that he had probably mixed me up with another close neighbor who actually has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. We walk our dogs with that woman, whose name is Jeanette. Her husband is a Vietnam Vet with MS and Agent Orange issues.
This is a small town. I am curious if any other residents have heard I have dementia, and how I should address it. Start reciting facts and figures? Wear a sign that says “I am cognitively intact”? Maybe I can act outrageously in public and everyone will forgive me!
How would you manage a situation like this? Ever been the subject of a rumour?
Trail Baboon 
Oh my! Hopefully, when she goes to talk to the neighbor who was spreading the rumor, then it’ll spread the other way? If any rumors have ever been spread about me, no one‘s bothered to enlighten me!!
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Why were they talking about you in the first place? That’s why I would hesitate to move to a small town. If I did, I would let people think whatever they wanted about me.
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Well, it’s not as if you have the power to stop them. People believe what they want to believe, whether it’s true or not.
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Exactly. That’s why I wouldn’t put any energy into correcting them.
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Truer words were never spoken
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I’ve currently got a 33 day Wordle streak going, does that count for anything?
I currently wake up stupid early, so I whip through my NYT morning puzzles and get a morning walk in. That should be good enough for any nosy neighbors!
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Today’s Wordle was rough for me. Took me all six guesses to get it.
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Me too!
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Wasband has a son M. born 1977. Lonnngggg story but I met him when he was 5 and his mom was still living in Winona. We lost contact over the years, as we all moved around a lot. He and Husband were reunited in 1998, and we’ve been close family ever since.
We had all moved away from Winona; we returned in 2016, bought a house in center of town. She returned about 5 years ago and bought a house around the corner from us. (I know for a fact she had no idea – she and I are friendly).
I heard from a friend of mine that the rumor going around when she moved in was that Husband had not known about their son! I had my friend set the story straight for the person she had heard it from, but like you, Renee – who knows.
It’s amazing how these things get started, but does anyone else remember that game “Telephone”, where you’d sit in a circle, whisper something to one person, and let it go all around the circle? Unrecognizable by the time it got back to you!
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A jealous workmate started a rumor that I was gay.
I went with the “not that there’s anything wrong with that” and let him stew in his own hate
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I, of course, meant Husband in the first sentence, not Wasband.
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Oops!
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Now we can start a new rumour about you and “wasband”
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Wow! That’s quite a rumor when you’ve only just returned to your home town! That certainly is what small town living is like.
I guess I’d just be myself. If someone is looking at you in a quizzical way, you could tell them you have been diagnosed with dementia and you’re suddenly, quickly going nuts – APRIL FOOLS!
There probably are rumors about me – I think being slightly odd makes it more likely that people invent things about you – but I haven’t heard them. That’s okay. I know I’m odd. Most women I know don’t love solitude as much as me. I think it strikes many other women as strange and they’re not sure how to deal with me. Who knows? They probably made up a story that I have some tall, dark, handsome lover somewhere, or a hidden fortune. Ha!
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Tee hee! Son read the post and asked me if I thought I should take the Mini Mental Status Exam or the MoCa! One problem with being a psychologist is that I know the answers to most cognitive tests and IQ tests. I guess a sign of dementia would be if I couldn’t remember any of the answers anymore.
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PERSON! WOMAN! MAN! CAMERA! TV!
Isn’t that the anwers?
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Have I ever been the subject of a rumor? Oh yes, no doubt about that. Fortunately I’m only aware of one, specifically.
Rumor had it in the first accounting firm that I worked for that I was having an affair with the managing partner to whom I reported directly. There was absolutely no truth to that rumor at all. Dick and I had a good and close working relationship, and that was it. We never had as much as a cup of coffee or a glass of wine together outside of the office.
I didn’t hear about the rumor until a couple of years after I had left the firm, and it angered me. It had been started by a secretary who was in fact having an affair with another partner of the firm. That man had previously had affairs with our receptionist and a statistical typist in our typing pool. How did I know this? The typist had confessed to her husband, and he came to the office to confront the partner with a gun. I happened to be in the reception area when he arrived, and I somehow managed to convince him that shooting Jerry wasn’t going to solve the problem.
What a Peyton Place that firm and the late seventies were.
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When I showed up for first day for teachers to report in August 1970, I went to pull out my opening day materials from my staff mailbox. I didn’t have a mailbox. I was standing in a short line to talk to the school secretary. Her face looked shocked. She said come with me. I asked where my mailbox was. She said just wait. She took me across the hall to the superintendent’s office where his secretary had the same reaction. She said. “Weren’t you drafted?” I said no. She rushed through the closed door to the superintendent’s office. They were about to sign my replacement.
The story came from the court house. A classmate of mine who confused me with another classmate. You would the school staff would have called my house.
Clyde
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People feel like they have to talk. Maybe it’s to compare themselves?
I’ve been talked about, and had to talk down another person who was being talked about…
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Rise and Shine, Baboons,
Renee, what a hoot! The dynamic has been immortalized in song!
Any effort you put into countering rumors simply feed the process.
When I was 18 years old my youngest cousin, Daniel, was born. I babysat for him a lot. I appeared with him at the county fair, an appearance which fed the rumor that I had had a baby. People were shocked, Shocked, SHOCKED. I graduated that year at 5’9″ tall and I weighed 120 pounds. I was skinny. There was no room there for a pregnancy, hidden or not. And I did not have a boyfriend at the time he would have been conceived. Eventually it all went away.
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